My adventures in bladesmithing and luthiery, and other stuff. Prepare to be amazed. (Yawn).

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My new job

That is to say, my new part time job. A blacksmith friend of mine suggested I might be interested in sharpening jackhammer bits for some local companies. I decided to give it a try, and I have to say, I like it. It pays pretty well, and doesn’t require a lot of brain usage.
These bits are used to remove the refractory walls in furnaces used to melt down aluminum cans. They do this sometimes when the furnaces are still hot, so it can really chew up the business end of the bits. I’ll take some more pics next time I work on them.

My job is to heat up about 3 to 4 inches of the tip, and forge it back into the shape it started out as. Then touch up on the grinder. Some of them are shaped like chisels, and some are 4 sided, and come to a point. It takes about 2 minutes to heat up and forge one bit (using my Bradley power hammer), and they pay me $5.50 per piece. :bliss:
Today I dropped off the first batch, which was 26, and brought back about 80 more: